


A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

by ambivalentangst



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Copious Amounts of Banter, Fluff, Gen, Panic Attacks, Peter Parker is a Little Shit, Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Sick Tony Stark, Spider-Man Interacting with New Yorkers, caretaker peter parker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:21:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27197080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambivalentangst/pseuds/ambivalentangst
Summary: Tony Stark is sick.Peter Parker is tasked with bringing him food.It’s notPeter’sfault some stuff comes up along the way.//Or, Spider-Man is out and searching for soup on a Saturday, but nobody—with the exception of Tony, whose complaints Peter is growing increasingly skilled at ignoring—says he can’t multitask and help his city at the same time.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 44
Kudos: 175





	A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bean_reads_fanfic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bean_reads_fanfic/gifts).



> I love you, Emily!!! Thanks for being the best, and I hope you enjoy a couple thousand words of boys being boys and Spider-Man being loved and useful to his city.

**_8:00 AM_ **  


Peter wakes up to the shrill beeping of the alarm clock on his phone. Through squinted, very annoyed eyes, Peter sees the grating glow of its screen bears a message from Tony.

_Tony: Sick so no lab day. Soerry. See u latwer._

He wakes up early on a Saturday to spend time with the elderly, and this is the thanks he gets. He groans, rolling over to lie flat on his back and evaluate his options. He could just go back to bed, which, honestly, sounds like a great plan. He had a calc test yesterday that he probably ate shit on because he got held up the night before saving a barista from an angry lady in a coffee shop and didn’t have time to study, and he couldn’t fall asleep until late last night because the universe hates him.

In summary, on the off-chance grades for it get posted today, if Peter’s going to get an F, he might as well find out on a full eight hours.

He turns off his alarms and wiggles deeper under the covers. Yeah, extra sleep would be great, and he lets his eyes close with a happy sigh.

**_8:15 AM_ **

The tenants living next door to Peter are the special kind of assholes who are vacuuming before ten on the weekend, so he will not be sleeping in after all.

“Fuckers,” he mumbles, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes as he stands and fumbles through the clothes on the floor to find the least smelly shirt available. He needs breakfast, but nothing around the apartment sounds good. 

Peter’s stomach rumbles. “I _know,”_ he tells it, padding to the kitchen and checking the fridge to make sure nothing new has magically appeared alongside the eggs and milk during the night. When he’s inevitably disappointed, he sighs, straightens up, and thinks.

Contrary to what _some people_ might say when he, say, gets shot or stabbed or is otherwise inconvenienced, he is capable of using his brain for self-care, and he comes up with the desire for the best blueberry pancakes in the world from a little diner that takes forever to get to.

Peter hears a baby cry two floors up and an argument start across the hall and decides that, to hell with it, it’s not like he wants to stay here. He grabs the remains of the cash May gave him for dinner the other night from the counter, and heads for the door, except—

Well. He could do this _faster,_ is all, as Spider-Man, and with that thought, he changes course and heads for his bedroom.

**_8:25 AM_ **

“You have a text from Tony,” Karen tells him as he rounds the corner of a skyscraper.

“Read it to me.”

 _“Peter,_ he said, but he didn’t include the second E. _I need a snack and Pepper is out of town. Please._ The please is spelled P-L-S.”

Peter laughs and waves at some people on the street below. “Tell him that I’m not UberEa—”

“You have another text from Tony.”

Tony never double-texts, just sends paragraphs the first time, because he’s old and also usually uses FRIDAY to message people, so he officially, begrudgingly, has Peter’s attention.

“Read it to me,” Peter says again, now wary.

“He says _I’m sick,_ no apostrophe between the I and M. _Don’t let me waste away. Pepper will be mad because_ —the _because_ is spelled B-C— _I have to submit plans for the new StarkPhone to R &D next week.”_

Peter sighs. Manhattan is hardly on the way, but Tony’s being dramatic, which means he’ll upgrade to calling to pester Peter if he doesn’t give in now. A well-rested Peter might have the energy to resist, but as is, he just sighs and suppresses the urge to roll his eyes. 

Whatever. It’s easy enough to get food for a sick person, even if this wasn’t Peter’s original plan.

“Can you Google if the pancake place sells soup?”

**_8:30 AM_ **

Peter is a few miles out from his target destination when he hears the cry from the street below, which is always Spider-Man’s cue to investigate what’s going on. He drops out of the skyline, looking around for the pickpocket he probably has to catch, but there’s no one darting through the crowd.

Peter frowns beneath his mask. “Alright, what the—”

“Shit! Oh, _shit,”_ a well-dressed woman says, standing a few feet away and examining something on the shoulder of her blazer.

It’s the clearest source of distress Peter can find, and he makes his way through the throngs of people without even getting cussed at for going against the flow of foot traffic. “Ma’am?” he asks, peeking over a businessman’s shoulder as he gets closer to her. “Ma’am, can I help you?”

Her head of luscious, dark curls bounces up to see who’s speaking to her, and Peter waves, finally getting close enough for them to comfortably talk. “It’s just me! What’s up?”

She deflates a little, and without the extra people between them, Peter can see that the _something_ on her jacket is bird poop, a classic occupational hazard of living in New York. “Oh! Hi, Spider-Man. How’s your day going?”

Peter’s very impressed with the politeness coming from someone with a biohazard on their outfit.

The sound of a vacuum, his growling stomach, and the buzz of his phone play with all the glamour of elevator music in Peter’s mind, but he tries not to let it show in his voice. “Could be worse,” he offers optimistically. “How about you?”

She laughs, but it’s a nervous, frayed thing. “I’ve—I’ve had _better._ I have an interview in forty-five minutes, and I don’t have time to go back home, and I really, _really_ want this job, and I just—oh, this is so _embarrassing._ Only me, you know?”

She starts getting choked up towards the end, her gestures with the folder she’s carrying getting tighter with stress, and Peter holds out his hands placatingly. “Hey—hey! You’ve got a little time, right? I passed a boutique or something a few blocks back. If you wait around here, I can swing over and grab something for you—uh—what’s your name?”

She blinks. “I—Jen, but wait, you’d do that?”

“For sure!” Peter slides his mask up to his nose for a second to show his smile. “Be right back, okay?”

She grins hopefully, and for the first time that day, Peter relaxes. “See you in a few,” she agrees, and off he goes.

**_8:40 AM_ **

“Karen, ask Tony to send pictures of one of his credit cards.”

**_8:42 AM_ **

“He says _If you_ —the O and U are switched around— _don’t get something fun, I will be disappointed. Also, what’s the ETA on my food.”_

“Let him wonder.”

**_8:50 AM_ **

“Alright, my AI said this would fit your proportions and that the red would be a good—uh—pop of color? Also, I got an extra bag you can put the other blazer in. I’ll get that dry-cleaned for you, too, if you want, so you don’t have to carry it there. And I can drop it off for you if you wanna’ give me your address.”

He holds out a parcel of scarlet fabric, and Jen’s eyes get _huge._ “You are a _life-saver,”_ she enthuses, and the second she has the new coat on and the old in the bag, Peter gets a tight, hurried hug, quickly followed by her address.

He watches her rush back onto her route, feeling satisfied with a job well-done, and then Karen chimes in again. “Peter,” she calls.

“Mhm?”

 _“Tony says I’m going to call May and tell her you’re_ —no apostrophe in the _you’re—starving me.”_

Passerbys see Spider-Man’s eyes narrow very, very quickly.

“Tell him she’s been stressed from work and is enjoying a coffee date with a friend, and if he interrupts them, I will watch and laugh as he dies from malnutrition.”

**_8:51 AM_ **

“He sent a frowny face.”

“Good.”

**_9:00 AM_ **

Peter is previously uncharted levels of relieved by the time he gets to the diner, and he doesn’t care in the slightest about the awe in the eyes of his waiter as he places his order. He is _so_ fucking hungry; his metabolism nowadays doesn’t mess around, and while he’s _kind of_ okay with hunger pangs, they’re never exactly _fun._

“Yeah, can I get three orders of blueberry pancakes, and—uh—the biggest to-go container of chicken noodle soup you can get me?”

“Um—uh—you’re Spider-Man?”

“Yeah,” Peter agrees.

“What is _Spider-Man_ doing over here?”

“Getting pancakes. Blueberry, specifically. You got those, right? That’s the important part of my order.”

“We’ve never had a _superhero_ eat here before.”

Peter tries _extremely_ hard to keep his cool. First, it’s weird to have someone fanboy over him—he’s a friendly _neighborhood_ Spider-Man after all, not a big shot like the Avengers—and secondly, he is going to lose his fucking mind if he doesn’t get to eat soon. “Dude, I will bring _Iron Man_ here if you just give me my pancakes.”

“Iron Man?” the waiter squeaks.

“I am thirty-five minutes late on the most important meal of the day, and my stomach is not happy about it. We—” Yeah, Peter’s stooping to grouping himself in with the most melodramatic man on the face of the Earth; it’s _we_ now. “—do favors for people who help us out.”

And if Tony won’t be getting his soup until he agrees to visit the diner, that’s nothing the guy needs to know.

The waiter opens and closes his mouth wordlessly, and gently, Peter takes his notebook and writes the order himself. “Emphasis on the pancakes,” he reminds him, not unkindly.

“That’ll—that’ll be right out,” the waiter manages, and Peter is proud to say he doesn’t shout in victory when he stumbles off to bring the order to the kitchen.

**_9:15 AM_ **

Peter doesn’t _cry_ when the waiter brings him his food, but it’s a close thing.

**_9:20 AM_ **

Twelve pancakes later, Peter is a changed and slightly nauseous man.

“Worth it,” he breathes to no one in particular, patting his stomach. He’s still waiting on the soup—he suspects his bordering-on-rabid desperation to eat bled into his voice and minimized his wait time for his breakfast—but in the meantime, he’s content to sit and bask in the wake of demolishing a plate of fluffy, syrupy goodness.

He _was_ , anyway, until he heard the scattered, under-his-breath ramblings of a dude a few tables over.

From what Peter can tell, he’s studying for a chem exam, and it’s not going well. Peter honestly isn’t very amenable to things like _moving_ right now, but the guy obviously needs some help—or at least a study buddy. Besides, Peter’s not going anywhere until the soup is done.

He rises and walks over to find a college student with the darkest under-eye circles he’s ever seen—and he regularly interacts with Tony—and _three_ empty coffee cups at his table.

“Hey! Can I give you a hand?”

The dude pushes wire-rimmed, Harry-Potter-esque glasses up his nose. “You’re Spider-Man,” he observes astutely.

“So I’ve been told,” Peter responds.

The dude makes direct eye contact and stares— _just_ stares—for a solid ten seconds. Peter can see war flashbacks playing in his pupils like something out of a cartoon, but in his experience—once again, he regularly interacts with Tony—that’s just what enough black coffee does to a person.

When he breaks his silence, he does so succinctly: “Do you know organic chemistry?”

“Hell yeah, dude.”

“Please save me.”

“That’s kind of what I do,” Peter assures him, and he’s sliding into the other side of the booth when he sees the tickets on the empty coffee cups—“Wait, were those _all_ dark roast?”

“I’m not doing so good right now.”

“Let’s get you fixed up,” Peter says with a wince of sympathy and picks up a pencil.

_**10:00 AM** _

“—and _that_ is why the covalence of carbon matters for the composition of lipids,” Peter finishes with his elbows resting on top of a truly enormous tub of chicken noodle soup.

The guy—Zeke—finishes scrawling something in his notebook, and he stares at Peter in what can be best described as wonder. “How are you so good at all of this? I thought I was going to fail this midterm.”

Peter shrugs, but he grabs a container of web-fluid from his waist and dangles it in front of him. “I’ve gotta’ be good at chemistry to make this, and I think it’s fun, so it works out. Does this all make sense?”

Zeke nods, grinning. “You’re a way better tutor than anyone in the student center.”

The praise makes something warm in Peter’s now-sated stomach. “I do what I can,” he replies. “Have you got it from here? I—um—technically have a delivery to make.” He gestures down to the soup, which came out of the kitchen a half-hour ago and is getting cold, but that’s a Tony problem.

“Oh, yeah, totally. You really broke it down for me, man—I owe you one. And, if you don’t mind me asking, who’s the soup for?” 

Peter stands, sliding the bag with the blazer over his wrist before hefting the container up and waving him off with his free hand. “Don’t worry about it—just doing my part for the city, you know? And this is for my friend Tony. He’s sick, I guess, but that’s not stopping him from being annoying.”

He’s almost to the door when Zeke hops out of his seat and shouts at him. “Wait, your friend Tony? As in _Tony Stark?”_

Peter nods and rolls his eyes. “Yeah, but don’t be too impressed. I’m being his delivery boy because he’s too lazy to use GrubHub or something. See you around!”

Peter steps outside, and the door closes on Zeke’s shout—“Wait, come back, what do you mean you’re bringing that to Tony _goddamn_ St—”

**_10:03 AM_ **

After a nearly disastrous incident with the soup, Peter concludes that he needs to drop the blazer off, and what’s more, he’ll have to walk because webslinging with both items is not going to work.

“Karen, where’s the closest dry-cleaner?”

“Three miles back the way you came.”

Of _course_ it is.

“You have a new text from Tony.”

“Shocker.”

“He says _My life force is draining by the minute_. Draining is very misspelled.”

“You know, you’d think one of the smartest men in the world would have his autocorrect working.”

“It is quite perplexing,” Karen agrees, and Peter snorts and slings the laundry over his shoulder as he walks.

**_10:37 AM_ **

“How much for the blazer?” Peter asks the woman at the counter—Maria, according to her name tag.

“Why is Spider-Man getting a women’s blazer dry-cleaned?”

“Crime-fighting is no excuse for not being fashion-forward, ma’am.”

She looks him up and down. “Mhmm. And that’s why you parade around in a red and blue onesie?”

Peter presses a hand over his heart while she shifts to appraising the stain on the jacket with a wrinkle of her nose. _“Ouch.”_

“Walk it off.” She looks back at him. “And it’ll be free for you. We’ll have it ready by the same time tomorrow, alright?”

“Woah, woah, woah,” Peter protests. “I—” And by _I,_ he means Tony. “—can pay!”

Maria shakes her head and crosses her arms in front of her chest, and Peter can tell from the look in her eyes alone that she will not be swayed. “Heroes discount,” she says, steely and even. “You keep doing what you’re doing for New York, and this one’s on the house.”

_“But—”_

“Get out of my shop, Spider-Man,” she commands, and Peter, for once, decides to acknowledge that he’s beaten.

“Yes, ma’am!” he chirps, feeling entirely too small under the weight of her stare, and he scurries out just as quickly as he’d come in.

**_10:40 AM_ **

Peter is actually headed for Manhattan by the time the first call comes in, and the ringing that fills his mask is no less obnoxious than he would expect from Tony.

“Peter, Tony is trying to—”

“Patch him through.”

A single, blissful beat of silence, and then—

“Peter. Underoos. Hero of the common people. Apple of my eye. Light of my life—”

“Colonel Rhodes is the real light of your life, and we both know it.”

“—where the hell is my snack?”

“En route,” Peter provides helpfully, and to what he feels is his credit, cheerfully. Spider-Manning is just a really dangerous customer service job, if he thinks about it, so it makes sense.

In Tony’s defense, he _does_ sound like shit, mucousy and stuffy and all other kinds of gross: “I put my request in over _two hours_ ago.”

Peter hums, doing a bad job at keeping his amusement out of his voice. “I got distracted. When New York needs saving, Spidey has to step in.”

“What about me, huh? I’m not as young as I used to be, you know. _And_ I have a heart condition. That’s a double whammy.”

Peter does a flip on a whim and immediately panics that the lid of the soup will fall off, but against the odds, it stays put in the crook of his arm. He lets out a breath of relief before responding. “I didn’t know the common cold put you at increased risk of cardiac arrest.”

Tony _harrumph_ s. “New research is coming out all the time. How would you know? Are you an expert?”

“Yes.”

“First of all, lying isn’t becoming of a young man.” There comes a truly disgusting sounding sneeze from Tony’s end of the conversation, and then, sounding more nasally than before—“Second of all, _when_ are you going to be here, exactly? The lining of my stomach is being eaten by acid as we speak.”

“Eventually!” Peter insists. “I really am on my way now. I had to help a lady on her way to an interview, and then I had to eat pancakes and get your food, and then I had to tutor this dude in organic chemistry, and _then_ I had to take a suit jacket to the dry cleaner’s. It’s been a busy morning.”

“Psh—organic chemistry is _easy.”_

“Not to everyone, Mr. Stark,” Peter chastises him. “He has insomnia, and a lot of times he’s too tired to focus in class.”

“Well, how far away _are you?”_

Peter looks down, searching for a distinctive location to tell Tony he’s by. He’s passing the entrance to a subway station, for one, and while that’s normally nothing to pause at, he sees a pair of kids—like, elementary-aged kids—flagging him down.

“I’ll get there at some point,” he promises. “Gotta’ go—bye!”

_“Wai—”_

Peter hangs up and swings down to meet them. “‘Sup,” he greets eloquently.

“Stay with us,” the taller of the two—a thin, shrewd-looking boy who can’t be more than nine or ten—commands.

Peter raises his brows, nudges the pair out of the walkway, and looks from the boy to who seems to be his sister. They have the same loose, brown waves, the same high cheeks and ski-slope noses. “Sure,” he agrees instantly. Kids are fun, and besides, he doesn’t see an adult with them. Still just to be sure, he asks, “Why?”

“We lost our dad on the train, and he said if we ever got separated on the subway, I was supposed to take Lizzie and find a mom with kids to help us, ‘cept I didn’t see one of those, so I got you.”

Peter has to give it to him, that’s a fantastic leap of logic, even if his gut does twist at the thought of what could’ve happened to two lost kids in NYC if he hadn’t seen them.

“Great choice. I rock, and more importantly, you rock as a big brother to Lizzie.” As he says it, he winks at Lizzie for good measure, who ducks behind her brother but offers a shy smile, then balls his hand up and extends it to the boy for a fist bump. “What’s your name, bud?”

Peter receives what he thinks is quite possibly the gravest fist bump in the history of the world and the kid’s name: “Alex.”

“Nice to meet you, Alex, and of course, nice to meet you too, Lizzie. Let’s go back down there, alright? That’s probably where your dad’ll be expecting you guys.” Not for the first time, Peter lifts his mask enough to expose his smile. “Think you guys can do that for me?”

Lizzie gives a determined nod, still silent as she clutches tighter to Alex. For his part, Alex lifts his chin in what’s probably an effort to seem more courageous than he feels, but it wobbles just so, and there’s a certain crease to his brows that prompts Peter to toss him a lifeline. “You know, I have a free hand, and I’ve been told my suit is very fun to touch.”

In an instant, Alex’s pale, slightly-sweaty palm slips into Peter’s, and he takes hold of the kid in what he hopes is a reassuring grip.

“Excellent! Onward, my young voyagers,” he urges, and just like that, their little trio meanders down the stairs.

**_10:45 AM_ **

“Spider-Man,” Alex whispers as if trying not to draw attention to their not-at-all inconspicuous group, “your head is ringing. Like a phone.”

That’d be Tony, but now’s not the time to hear him complain.

“Yeah, it does that,” he assures him. “It’s just a friend of mine who won’t leave me alone.”

“Why won’t they leave you alone?” Alex presses, and for the first time, Lizzie speaks too, her voice petal-soft from behind Alex’s legs.

“Yeah, why?”

Peter mimes a hair flip. “He’s obsessed with me. Also, I’m supposed to be bringing him food, and he thinks I’m taking too long.”

“Is that what’s in there?” Lizzie asks, pointing to the container he’s set on the ground.

Peter nods. “Sure is. I got him some soup, specifically. Think you guys can guess what kind it is?”

**_10:54 AM_ **

“Ummm—fish?”

“Good guess, Miss Lizzie, but alas, you’re off the mark.”

“What about mushroom?”

“Would you believe me, Alex, if I told you that he hates mushrooms? He’s very loud about it.”

**_10:57 AM_ **

“Pozole!”

“I admire your multiculturalism, but that’s not it either. Also, isn’t pozole a stew?”

“What’s multiculturalism?”

“Ah, well—”

**_11:02 AM_ **

“Alex! Lizzie!”

“Dad!” the kids yell in unison, and before Peter knows it, they’re sprinting to give bearhugs to a man who is clearly their father and _was_ clearly worried about his children.

“Oh God, I’m so glad you guys are safe. What have I _told you_ about running away from me at the station?”

“Dad—Dad!” Alex yells, ignoring his father’s scolding in favor of his own excitement, the concern and seriousness from their initial meeting ebbed away after Peter got him talking. “We found Spider-Man! He has soup for his friend!”

“Wait—what?” the man asks, searching his children’s faces before looking up, and Peter waves from his place a little ways away.

“Hi! Your kids are great, by the way, and Alex is super smart—he flagged me down on—uh—patrol.” It’s not _quite_ the word he’d use to describe his increasingly convoluted delivery run, but it’s simpler than explaining everything.

Alex and Lizzie’s father blinks, shaking his head a little as he tries to process what’s going on. “Alright—um—thank you? Yeah—yeah, thanks. They’re just too curious for their own good sometimes, and they saw this new art exhibit at another stop, and—”

Peter puts his hands up. “Hey, you don’t need to justify yourself to me. Your kids are crazy about you, and that’s good enough for me. Parenting’s hard, man.” 

He means to say more, but then Lizzie tugs his arm and draws his attention away from her dad. “Spider-Man! You never told us—what kind of soup is it?”

Peter grins. “Well, you guys _might’ve_ already guessed it, but it’s chicken noodle.”

Lizzie and Alex gasp in offense.

“You _lied!”_ Alex accuses him, but he doesn’t seem genuinely hurt, just miffed.

“I’m sorry! You guys were so good at guessing; I wanted to see what else you could come up with,” he defends himself. In truth, the game was just a good way to keep them distracted from their lack of parental supervision, but that’s neither here nor there. “Can you ever forgive me?”

Alex and Lizzie look at each other, and an entire conversation elapses with their eyes alone.

“We _might,”_ Alex begins, “if we can have the soup.”

At the same time Peter barks out an ugly, loud laugh, their dad jumps in: “Alex,” he hisses, then looks to Peter. “I am so sorry. He doesn’t mean that.”

Peter shakes his head. “Nah, don’t worry about it.” He holds out the container of soup to Alex, who envelops it in his small arms with an enormous, shark-like grin. He’ll find something else to give to Tony, and that probably needs to get to the fridge sooner rather than later anyway. “I have to mend broken bridges somehow, right? Besides, my friend isn’t going to eat all of that by himself. It’ll work better for you guys, anyway.”

Their poor dad still looks like he’s struggling to get up to speed. “Oh, you don’t need to—”

Peter has to get going. “Have a good rest of your day! Enjoy the soup!”

“Tha-anks!” two voices sing-song, and Peter has exactly zero regrets as he heads out of the subway and back into his city.

**_11:15 AM_ **

After declining two more calls from Tony and having Karen find the closest restaurant that sells soup, Peter walks out of a family-owned Mexican joint with a generous helping of what smells like a truly delicious tortilla soup, complete with a plastic spoon and napkins because Peter is classy and remembered those niceties the second time around.

He’s on his way this time! He’s on the edge of Manhattan now, and it’s honestly better that he gave away the chicken noodle—Tony probably wouldn’t appreciate food poisoning on top of his cold. It’s called being _courteous_ , and Peter is nothing but, especially when he gets a call from May.

“Hey!” he greets her, swinging into an apartment-heavy area. “How was the coffee shop?”

“Great!” she responds, and Peter can hear 70s music playing in the background, meaning she’s probably home and doing chores to the sound of her and Ben’s favorite era of music. “I tried their London Fog today, and it was _amazing_. Plus, Marissa—” That’d be the friend she saw. “—is always fun to talk with. You know her daughter’s pregnant?”

“Boy or girl?” Peter asks, though his ear is drawn by some shouting he goes to investigate.

“They’ve decided not to find out, actually. What about you? What are you up to? Lab day?”

Peter snorts, the sound exasperated and fond in the same breath. “Yeah, not quite. Tony’s sick, and I’m bringing him some food because Pepper’s out of town. I’ve taken a few detours, but I’ll be home eventually.”

“Hm, make sure he says thank you,” May muses. “Manhattan’s a long way to swing. I’m going to clean up a little bit and take a nap. Maybe _just_ nap, depending on how much I decide I care about dusting. I’ll see you later, though, okay? Stay safe! I larb you!”

“Larb you too,” he laughs, and May ends the call just as he closes in on the source of the shouting: a group of tween, possibly teen boys playing soccer on a concrete courtyard between buildings.

“Well, that’s less inconvenient than expected,” he mutters to himself, and a beat later, Karen sounds through his mask.

“I have a message from Tony.”

“Yeah?”

“He says _This is elder abuse_ with a capital A on abuse.”

“Tell him that it can’t be elder abuse because I’m not his caretaker.”

“The message has been sent.”

“Thanks, Karen.”

_“Yo, Spidey!”_

Peter nearly falls off the building it scares him so bad, but he gathers his bearings and finds the group of boys staring at him. “Uh—hey, guys!” he shouts back. “How’s the game going?”

“It’d be better if you were playing with us!” the voice from before shouts, a short, presumably Puerto Rican kid, judging by the accent on the Spanish he shoots, rapid-fire, at one of his teammates when they ask him, also in Spanish, what the hell he’s thinking, asking a superhero to play with him.

And, well, who is Peter to deny that request?

“You know, I have the reflexes, but I don’t know the rules here,” he admits as he makes his way to the court.

“Don’t worry about it,” the group’s apparent spokesperson waves his concerns off, punching him on the arm. “I’m Julian, and since it was my amazing idea to ask you to play, you’re on my team. You can be goalie. Just don’t let the ball get past you, and it’s all good.”

“I don’t think it’s that simple—”

“Aye, Spidey’s with us!” Julian announces before shoving Peter in his spot and punching him again, on his other arm this time. “You’ll do great!”

**_11:30 AM_ **

“Spider-Man, the ball’s not gonna _hurt you_ , man—quit ducking.”

**_11:45 AM_ **

“Woah— _woah!_ Watch it with the ball! It’s not made for super strength.” 

**_11:50 AM_ **

_“Yeah!_ That’s the stuff! Knew you had it in you, man.”

**_12:30 PM_ **

By the time the clock strikes twelve, Peter is thoroughly sweaty and much more informed on the rules of soccer—or at least, the rules Julian and his friends play by. The game breaks up because one of them promised he’d be home before 1:00 to help his mom with chores, and Peter is the recipient of a lot of tight, exceptionally warm hugs before he swings off to inch ever closer to his final destination.

Tony tried to call him five more times over the course of the soccer game, but he informed Karen—much to the confusion of the boys, who asked him if he was going crazy—to decline all of them. He was _busy,_ and he learned very quickly that Julian and company were not remotely above dirty tricks, hence why he suspects their version of the rules of the game is not entirely by the books.

Regardless, Peter had a fantastic time, and he’s sad to be moving on, although he does feel strangely light as he, literally, gets back into the swing of his commute.

**_12:45 PM_ **

Peter is not _proud_ to admit that he’s fifteen minutes away from the courtyard when he realizes the whole _feeling light_ thing is because he left the soup on the roof, but it does happen.

“Don’t tell Tony about this,” he grumbles to Karen.

“I will not alert him, but I can do nothing about his ability to track your location.”

Peter groans.

**_1:15 PM_ **

It takes a half-hour for Peter to get the soup and catch up with where he was before he had to turn around, but at least from that point on, the trip is less grating. He does, however, get tired of skyscrapers, so he eventually makes his way to a park and starts using the trees there.

The change in scenery is nice, and at this rate, he should finally be at the Tower within another twenty minutes or so. Tony, naturally, has some thoughts about his time frame—

_Hav you been kidnapped? Is that whats goibng on here? Bc I just dont see how getting me somnething good to eat is taking five hours._

_Wat happened to the carfing, loving Peter I kno? He wud nevr let me wasrte away like this._

_A man can onkly eat so mny crackers and pop-tarts n a day, Peter._

—but Peter ignores those and that Tony’s ability to text degrades significantly when he’s feeling under the weather. Responding is just fuel to his _how-much-can-I-bother-Peter-in-one-day_ fire, and at any rate, he thinks this time he’s going to make it uninterrupted.

Then he’s swinging from an oak to a maple, and he’s ninety percent sure he hears someone hyperventilating. He balks, as best as he can while he’s webslinging, anyway, and when he takes in his surroundings, he finds what looks like a bride having a panic attack on a nearby bench.

“Oh my God,” she whispers in the reediest, most frantic pitch Peter’s ever heard. She’s going back and forth between shaking her hands and smoothing them down her dress, but it seems the intricate lace and sequins are doing little to soothe her. “I can’t do this. I can’t _do_ this.”

Peter lands in a crouch on the ground, approaching warily. “Ma’am?” he asks, and she jolts like she’s been shocked, wiping at her tears.

“Who’s there?” she asks, clearly making a valiant attempt to be composed and, in the nicest possible way, failing miserably.

“Just me!” Peter promises, jogging out from where other vegetation obscured him from view. “I—uh—I was in the area, and you seemed upset. Can I help you?”

She shakes her head. “I’m—I’m good,” she tries to say, but her voice cracks on a sob. She buries her face in her hands with a breath so harsh it makes her shoulders shake. “I’m _fine,”_ she lies again, and then she looks up and offers two _thumbs up._

 _Youch._ Peter’s been there, and it’s not good.

He inches a little closer, and when she doesn’t tell him to go away, he sits next to her on the bench, leaving a foot or two between them. “Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s not too late to fix it. As someone who’s made his fair share of _ridiculously_ dumb mistakes, I don’t think it ever is.”

(To be perfectly honest, Peter’s out of his depth, but he reasons that if he can fight a supervillain, he can face this challenge, too.)

She shakes her head, fanning her face with her hands. “I—I _ran_ from him. I just—I don’t think I can do this. It didn’t work out for my sister or my mom or even my aunt, and I—oh my God, I just _left him_ there. I can’t do this—I can’t even _breathe_. My dress has _grass stains_ on it!” she shouts, her voice getting loudest toward the end, and she lifts her skirt with an aggressive crinkling of fabric as proof of her claims.

“Alright, alright,” Peter soothes her, gently pushing her hands down so they stop clenching her dress because he’s genuinely concerned that she might tear it. “Hey, let’s just breathe first, okay? I’ve had my fair share of panic attacks—”

“I’m having a panic attack?” she gasps. 

“You’re having a panic attack,” he affirms, careful to keep his voice calm, “but that’s okay. It happens, and we can fix that part of—uh—this. Can I grab your hand?”

A nod, jerky and seeming almost painful for its sharpness. 

Peter grasps her palm and brings it to his chest. “Feel my breathing?” he asks. “I’m gonna’ take some slow, deep breaths, and you can copy me. Come on—we’ve got this, right?” he encourages her.

“In—” His chest swells under her touch. “—and out.” And then it deflates. He watches the motion mirror itself under the mesh of her dress, and they do it one, two, three times—Peter loses count, eventually. He doesn’t care how long it takes, as long as he can get her to calm down, and slowly her tears turn from broken-dam, hysteria-driven things to the earnest current of a stream.

“Thanks,” she breathes eventually, the word thick and wet. 

As is apparently the pattern for the day, Peter lifts the bottom of his mask to flash a small smile. “Of course. Now, do you want to talk about it?”

She looks down, gone from rushed gestures to twiddling fingers, still uncertain, still unfortunately unsure for a woman who—in Peter’s humble opinion—should be experiencing one of the best days of her life. She’s quiet for a moment that stretches into infinity with her insecurity, and for the second time that day, Peter decides Tony’s meal is a sacrifice he’s willing to make.

“Would soup help?”

Her eyes slide to him. “What kind?”

“Tortilla, from a family-owned place.”

She sniffles. “That sounds so fucking good,” she says in the tiniest voice imaginable, and Peter hands it over before he taking up a position holding napkins under the bowl and spoon so she doesn’t stain her dress.

She has a couple of bites, and then she starts going into things. “I’ve always had commitment issues, you know? My dad divorced my mom when I was really young, so the sanctity of marriage has never been, like, a big theme in my life. My aunt’s wife left her, too, and my sister’s husband turned out to be super controlling, so that didn’t work out either.” 

She spoons herself another mouthful, swallows, and Peter sees a few more tears roll down her cheeks. “The extra salt from crying, isn’t bad, as weird as that sounds,” she mutters with a watery laugh, and then she continues, the words refusing to stop now that she’s started. “I met this guy—oh, and I’m Claudia, by the way—Nick, about three years ago, in my college stats class. I’m, like, _horrible_ at math, but he was such a good teacher! He offered to help me study, and _yeah_ , I’d catch him staring at me sometimes, but I didn’t think much of it. I have this whole fear of intimacy business happening along with the commitment issues, so I thought he was just being _nice._ It’s a _thing,_ you know?” 

Peter doesn’t, but he nods in solidarity anyway.

“I managed to get an A in the class with his help, and then at the end of the semester he asked if I wanted to go on a date, and I—um—ran away from him then, too, actually.”

She eats some more, and Peter lets her have a minute or two before he prompts her: “But?”

Another sniffle. “But he found me and apologized for freaking me out and making assumptions. And it took us a while, but he was really, _really_ patient and just—so sweet. He’s the best guy in the world, and I love him to pieces, and he somehow convinced me to marry him, but I just don’t think I’m _cut out_ for this. My mom and my sister and my aunt all thought they were in love too! It’s—I don’t want this thing that I think is good to fall through on me, so—so it’s probably better just to cut it off now.”

Oh, now _that’s_ the most heartbreaking thing probably ever, and what is Peter supposed to do? Just sit there and let her think that?”

“Okay, so first of all,” he begins, “Nick’s _insanely_ lucky to have you, and if he can’t see that, he’s an idiot. A numbskull. Just an all-around chode.”

“What’s a chode?”

“Not important! Because what is important is that if he came after you before, why wouldn’t he do the same now? If he’s seen you at your worst already, there’s no reason he wouldn’t accept you in the future. He chased after you because he _wants_ you—wants _this._ And if you’re not ready, that’s okay, but don’t bow out because you think it won’t be worth it! You love him, and he clearly has a lot of love to give too. You _deserve this,”_ he finishes, eyes narrowed and hands gesticulating with his conviction.

Peter himself is surprised by the passion behind his tangent. He didn’t realize he had this much insight into weddings or love— _he_ certainly doesn’t have any experience with romance—but he can’t just let Claudia walk away without _trying_ to change her mind.

He rants, believing every word he says, and then he really _looks_ at Claudia once he’s done and finds her tears spilling in full-force again, dripping off her chin and into the soup. 

Oh dear. Oh fuck. He messed up—he messed up _bad._

“Oh God, I’m so sorry,” he scrambles to apologize. “I just thought—”

Claudia shakes her head and cuts him off. “No—no. They’re happy tears. That was—um—very kind of you to say, and I wasn’t expecting it.” She looks into the depths of her tear-ridden soup. “I do deserve this, don’t I?” she mutters, and Peter senses that the question is more for herself than anything. “I deserve to think I can be loved. I deserve it— _I deserve it,”_ she repeats, and Peter sees the effect the words have on her, how her shoulders roll back, her chin lifts, a stunning, confident woman emerging from her terrified shell. 

“That’s the spirit!” Peter shouts, and when he puts his palm up in invitation, they high-five so hard it makes his skin sting. “Have an amazing wedding, and enjoy the rest of your soup because—” he trails off, waiting for her to finish.

“I deserve it!”

“Hell yeah!”

“Hell _yeah!”_ she echoes, and after setting the soup off to the side, Claudia wraps him up in a hug that would give Jen, Alex, Lizzie, _and_ Julian all a run for their money. “You’re the best, Spidey. I know you’re a busy guy, but if you have the time, the reception starts at 4:00 here in the park. I’d love to have you.”

“I’ll be there,” he promises, and just before he hits the button to send out a web, he turns back for one last thing. “Any chance I can bring a plus one?”

“Anyone you want,” Claudia swears, and though Peter sails off into the treetops, he hears when Nick—panting for breath from chasing her down, presumably—takes his soon-to-be-wife back with open arms.

“I love you, sweetheart. Let’s go get married, okay?” he says, and _then_ Peter hears his _oomph_ of surprise from Claudia kissing him as hard as she can.

**_2:30 PM_ **

“Delivery for Tony Stark!” Peter yells, crawling through one of the windows in the common area of the Tower, which was ultimately bought back a few months after Homecoming because Tony decided it was too nostalgic to let go of.

“About _damn time!”_ Tony growls, bundled up in what looks like four different blankets and working on wiggling his hands free.

“Has anyone ever told you that you whine a lot?”

“Yes. Pepper, Rhodey, and Happy, all many, many times. Now _give me my food_ or so help me, I will strangle you with your web fluid. What’d you get me, anyway?”

“What did you _end up with?_ Egg drop soup from a Chinese place a few blocks away. I _got you_ chicken noodle soup in bulk and tortilla soup, but those were both compromised, so! You get what you get.”

Peter rips his mask off and then removes the lid from the take-out container and gives him the plastic spoon. “Did you want the fortune cookies with it, or can I eat those?”

The weight behind Tony’s glower is rather impressive for a man whose hands are his sole maneuverable body part. “Don’t even think about it, you ingrate. You effectively _abandoned_ me in my time of need,” he complains, even as Peter puts the soup in his hands. “Have you ever thought about that?”

“Many, many times,” Peter throws his words back at him. “I just decided you’d, I don’t know, _live_. Why couldn’t you use some other more efficient delivery service?”

“Because you were already on your way!” Tony insists, taking an obnoxiously loud slurp of the soup and doing a bad job of downplaying how much he obviously enjoys the food. “I didn’t want extra food I wasn’t going to eat, but I sent you to get me something _six hours ago._ Your service gets half a star, and it would be zero stars if that was an option on most rating sites.”

Peter rolls his eyes, but there’s no heat behind the action. “Would you just eat your soup and the cookies? We have an event to get to.”

Tony widens his eyes at him in disbelief. “What part of _I’m sick_ did you miss?”

“Uh—the part where if you take a bunch of Advil, you can give the best bride ever the reception she deserves? C’mon! I made a promise. Consider it payback for asking me to swing from Queens to Manhattan. Also, at some point, you’re going with me to brunch at a diner I like.”

_“What?”_

Peter hums consideringly. “If you’re not feeling open to the idea, I can always take the soup back.”

Tony shuffles further back into his blankets and glares furiously. “I liked you better when you were too caught up in hero-worship to do things like _be evil.”_

“Eat! We have to be there at 4:00.”

“We have to be there at 4:00,” Tony mumbles into his soup, twisting his face with the childish mockery of Peter’s voice he provides. He looks up after his next bite, speaking around the spoon in his mouth. “What did you even _do_ today?” he asks, and Peter is happy to explain.

**_4:00 PM_ **

“Congrats, Claudia!” Peter yells, cruising above the reception from a web attached to the boot of Tony’s armor.

The crowd whoops in delight and astonishment, and Peter waves, even as Tony’s voice filters through his mask, sounding stuffy but not _that_ irritated: “The things I do for you, kid.”

Peter laughs, thinking of Jen, Zeke, and everyone else he met today and hoping they’re doing well, that Spider-Man helped with an interview or a midterm or even just a meal. “All in a day’s work, Mr. Stark,” he replies, and with a sneeze and an exasperated shake of his head, Tony plots a course back to the tower.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written, edited, formatted, and posted in approximately twenty-four hours, so my apologies for any mistakes! That being said, follow the birthday girl on [her tumblr](https://the-reverse-mermaid.tumblr.com) and read her fics on ao3 for good health, and thank you to [sreppub](https://sreppub.tumblr.com) and [dredfulhapiness](https://dredfulhapiness.tumblr.com) for letting me yell at you/offering ideas for this fic.
> 
> If you liked what you read, kudos and comments are always appreciated! Thanks for stopping by, and if you want to yell at me about this fic or anything else that strikes your fancy, I have a Marvel-only blog that can be found [here!](https://ambivalentmarvel.tumblr.com)


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